Page 3 of Silent Vows

MATTEO

The scotch burns going down, but I welcome the pain. Twenty-four hours since Giovanni’s death, and the weight of unspoken promises sits heavy on my shoulders like a burial shroud. From behind my mahogany desk, I stare at the Manhattan skyline through bulletproof glass, watching my city glitter like broken glass in the darkness.

The crystal tumbler in my hand is my third of the night—or maybe my fourth. I’ve lost count, though I never lose control.

Control. It’s what separates men like me from common thugs. It’s what’s kept me alive for fifteen years as the head of this business, what’s built the DeLuca empire into what it is today. But watching my best friend die in that hospital bed, seeing the light fade from his eyes while I could do nothing…well, some things you can’t control.

The ice in my glass clinks as my hand tightens. I shouldn’t have let him go alone to that meeting. I knew something was wrong—the way he insisted on meeting the fucking Calabreses without backup, how he’d been making arrangements these past few weeks. Like he knew what was coming.

“Another report, Boss.” Antonio materializes from the shadows of my office, silent as always. My most trusted captain places a manila folder on the desk, his lined face grim. “Surveillance footage confirms it was the Calabrese family.”

My jaw clenches until I taste copper. I’d warned Gio about this three fucking weeks ago, laid out the intelligence showing the Calabreses were making moves. But he’d been stubborn, convinced he could handle them alone. “I’ve dealt with their kind before,” he’d said, waving away my concerns.

Now he’s dead, and his daughter…

Christ. Isabella.

The image of her in the hospital haunts me—all wild dark hair and devastated hazel eyes, looking so much like her mother had twenty-plus years ago, before Cher turned into the society-obsessed harpy she is now.

But where Cher’s beauty was always calculated, Isabella’s hits like a punch to the gut. Raw. Real. Dangerous in a way she doesn’t even understand.

“What’s our exposure?” My voice is granite, betraying none of the turmoil beneath. A lifetime of practice makes it easy to hide the way my hands want to shake, the way grief and rage war in my chest.

“They’re making moves on all the Russo territory. Without Giovanni…” Antonio hesitates, choosing his words carefully. “Carmine’s already fielding offers for alliances. Some families think the Russos are vulnerable now.”

“They are.” I stand, walking to the window. My reflection stares back at me—at thirty-eight, I’m in my prime, silver threading through my dark hair at the temples only adding to my authority. The same authority that had failed to save my best friend. “And Isabella’s safety?”

The slight shift in Antonio’s stance tells me everything before he opens his mouth. “There’s been chatter.” He clears his throat.“Johnny Calabrese…he’s been asking questions about her. Some say he plans to force a marriage, secure the Russo assets that way.”

The crystal tumbler shatters in my grip, shards embedding in my palm. Blood drips onto my imported carpet, but I barely feel it. The rage I’ve been suppressing all day roars to life at the thought of Johnny Calabrese anywhere near Isabella. The man is a sadist, known for breaking his toys—two dead wives in five years, both ruled “accidents.”

A marriage to him would be Isabella’s death sentence.

My phone buzzes. A text from Carmine.

We need to discuss Isabella’s future. The vultures are circling.

Blood trickles down my wrist as my hand clenches. The last conversation I had with Gio plays in my mind like a film I can’t stop watching. We’d been sharing cigars on the terrace of the DeLuca compound just days ago—the kind of quiet moment rare in our violent world. The sweet notes of aged Cuban tobacco had mingled with the autumn air, our glasses of thirty-year-old Macallan catching the setting sun.

Gio had seemed…calm. Like a man who’d made his peace with what was coming.

“If anything happens to me, Matteo,” he’d said, staring into the gathering darkness, “protect her. Isabella…she’s everything good I ever did in this life. Don’t let our world destroy that.”

“You know I will,” I’d promised, not knowing how soon I’d have to make good on those words.

Not knowing how much that promise would cost us both.

Antonio clears his throat, drawing me back to the present. He gestures to my bleeding hand, but I wave him off. Physical pain is easier to deal with than the weight of failure crushing my chest.

A soft knock interrupts my dark thoughts. “Mr. DeLuca?” My assistant peers in, her professional mask slipping slightly at the sight of the blood. “The funeral home is ready for you to review the arrangements. And…Miss Russo is here.”

My head snaps up. “Isabella?” Her name tastes different on my tongue now—heavier, more significant. “Send her in.”

I quickly wrap a handkerchief around my bleeding hand, straightening my tie as the door opens. The moment Isabella steps in, the air changes. My carefully constructed world of dark woods, leather, and power shifts on its axis.

The fluorescent lights from the hallway illuminate her for a moment in the doorway, and Christ help me, she takes my breath away.

She’s traded her paint-splattered clothes for a simple black dress that makes her pale skin glow like porcelain in the dim light of my office. Her dark hair falls in waves past her shoulders—so like Gio’s in color but with her mother’s wild curl. Everything about her is a study in contradictions: the artistic soul subdued by mourning, the girl becoming a woman before my eyes, the innocence wrapped in unconscious sensuality that makes my blood burn with shame.

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